The Carriage
by Camudekyu
Summary: It should be easy to move on when life never stands still. Nothing inspires introspection like change, so what's in your baggage, Sesshomaru? SesshomaruRin


"Leave me the way I was before,  
But you're already in there."  
-Tori Amos, "Cloud on My Tongue"  
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Life is circular, like a wheel. Fate is fickle, but karma is vigilant. Perhaps that is why karma makes six figures a year while fate is still shelling out french fries at a drive through window. All intangible, uncontrollable aspects of existence that keep men up at night are curved and keep rolling, rolling, rolling out of reach.

Einstein had the right idea when he said time is relative. Its passage is indeed dependent on your perspective and present speed of viewing. But he failed to note that time is not linear. Time does not run like a moving sidewalk where one could simply hop off and watch it go by; you cannot walk backward or jump into a run in hopes of skipping a chapter or going back to rework a mishandled event. Time is a spiral, running down, down, down until it gets tired of plummeting and turns around to begin an upward climb. Sometimes is reels off to the right, and sometimes it veers to the left. But it always spirals. The layers of time overlap each other. They lay down cozily over their brethren and swap stories quietly with each other of all the farcical endeavors of the pawns that shuffle across their backs. If you listen closely enough, you'll hear it. If you can stop what you're doing long enough to be truly still, you'll catch glimpses of the decades sprawled over each other in one circular, reminiscent orgy.

Sun was setting on what had been a celebrated day. The ceremony had been smooth and clean, glistening in the afternoon sun like a blade. All choreography was followed flawlessly; all words were said with sincerity and a practiced pace. There had been no wrinkles, no stumbles, no falters... no hesitation.

The girl had glowed through all the matte tedium of protocol. Her luminescent, pale skin complimented the virgin white of her shiro-maku; the transition from skin to silk blended so well, there appeared to be no seam. She looked as though she were designed to wear a wedding kimono, as though the dress had been written into her original blueprints.

He thought she had looked odd in make up, though. She had been neither pouty nor coyly seductive in all his travels with her, and he felt the facade did not suit her.

She was muddy and barefoot. She was waist high and humming. She was chasing butterflies and laughing, braiding flowers and gamboling within the unseen boundaries of her naiveté.

But no longer, he sighed.

She had been beautiful. He abstractly knew that. And yet he could not bring himself to utter such betrayal out loud. If he recognized this new state, this abrupt jump from linear childhood to curved womanhood, then he would be accepting it. He would not allow this to cement.

_It already has. It has solidified without you. It is out of your hands... your hand._

Sesshomaru watched the sun slipping lower and lower toward the horizon. From there it would continue on its round path, its unending journey from one cardinal point of the compass to another. It would rise the next day, without fail.

And life would go on... with or without her.

Was there a time before the girl? Certainly, there had to have been. There had to have been centuries before she stumbled in with scrapped knees and knotted hair. Perhaps the memories he had without her had been some sort of illusion he had created to explain how he had found himself suddenly dissected and exposed at her feet. Or perhaps she was the illusion. She was a mirage his thirsty mind had created as he traipsed through the desert landscape that had inadvertently become his life.

Then, it was time to open his eyes and see that illusions, however refreshing and hopeful, are ephemeral. That is the nature of illusion. That is also the nature of little girls.

If there had indeed been years before her, then was it safe to assume that there would be years after her?

Sesshomaru scoffed. Of course there would be years after her! There would be glory and dignity and honor that she had hindered. There was no stopping the Demon Lord. He had frontiers to conquer and duties to fulfill. As long as he lived, there would be years after her. She was evanescent. She was a flower, a little weed that had bloomed up on the edge of his garden, and he had found her petals of such an interesting color that he had moved her into a more conspicuous plot. She had grown from a shoot to a bloom, and every morning, on his path through the garden, he had noticed her, even if he had not stopped.

And when it came time for the little flower to produce fruit, the Demon Lord had faltered. He found this one single blossom appealing; he had no intention of domesticating it. So he made a gift out his prized wild orchid. Perhaps she would then be cultivated by a more foolish tender.

There are times when the lines between foolishness and bravery blur like white silk over white skin.

The round sun, hanging over the lip of the land, began to laugh at the poor little Demon Lord. Sun had, of course, seen all the years before the girl and promised years after, and in his infinite wisdom and experience, the sun shook his head like an amused older sibling, wanting to spare a child the pain but not willing to sacrifice the lesson.

The lesson, Sesshomaru pondered. Over the years, he had learned that there was no experience that did not harbor a moral as a little sentimental tidbit to drop on the doorstep of his consciousness as a last, parting gift. So what was the lesson?

Do not revive strange girls in the woods. You don't know where they have been.

Do not take pity on humans lest they begin milking you for it or worse, inspire you to excrete other such emotions.

Do not attach yourself to fleeting things.

That must be it, Sesshomaru thought. Do not attach yourself. The rewards do not outshine the costs. He should have known that already, dammit.

The lesson is... the carriage of Sesshomaru's life was destined to plow down the same long road, a road so long that it circumnavigated the earth at least thrice. His horses were enduring. His driver was relentless. There was neither the time nor the desire to stop. And on this carriage, passengers came and went while Sesshomaru sat patiently, dangling his legs off the back. This must be remembered before all else. No passenger would linger for the entire journey.

_First had been a male and female, older, sophisticated, distracted. They rode his cart in silence, flanking him, watching the passing scenery. The female dismounted first. She gave her son a soft pat on the knee and then jumped off the back. Once a great distance away, she turned and glanced back, observing Sesshomaru's cold detachment before she disappeared around a turn. Next to go was the male. He pushed himself from the carriage and immediately started walking from where they had come. He did not look back._

_Somewhere along the way, Sesshomaru, much more mature now, picked up a human female who sat containedly in the corner as far from him as she could. In her arms, she held an infant who wailed and waved his little clawed hands._

_Before slipping from the carriage, the female handed the babe to Sesshomaru. She hesitated, holding the Demon Lord's gaze for a long moment, seeking a promise that she knew would never come. Sesshomaru glanced at her before looking away but not without accepting the bundled child. Mouthing words never to be heard, the female tumbled off his carriage clumsily and sat in the road, crying for her baby._

Sesshomaru glanced down at his right hand, his only hand, in the dim light of gloaming. He frowned. What had kept him from tossing the babe over the edge and riding on without regret? He found no answer to his question, only the vision of bright eyes and white hair that were so familiar. Maybe the female had snuck a mirror into the bundle so that every time Sesshomaru looked down, he would see himself. It was a guileful scheme that worked like a charm.

_When the babe grew older, Sesshomaru found his convoy too small for both of them. The boy was innocent and unknowing of what he was, what he represented. For that, Sesshomaru resented him. He resented the child for the shame of his origins; he resented the child for the freedom he had; he resented the child for having being so naive, thinking he could possible be anything but an abomination._

_The boy was loud and rowdy, needing much more space to run about than the confines of a carriage that was not really designed to transport children. And when Sesshomaru attempted to keep the boy inside the safety of the trundling cart, the boy became restless and ungrateful. _

_The departure of the child was an unspoken decision. They both agreed through their glares and acrimony that the child had worn through the thin, frayed cradle of his welcome. Later, after the boy had leapt from the back of the carriage proudly, declaring that he "didn't like aniki's stupid cart anyway," years since Sesshomaru had even considered his animosity toward his only kin, he paused to wonder what impact he had had on the child. He had essentially raised the boy. His fingerprints were undoubtedly left in the baked clay of the boy's being. _

Perhaps he really had been a mirror then. Perhaps the boy was what Sesshomaru himself would have become if he had lacked the training and etiquette and duties of being the first son.

He chose not to contemplate that. He could hear the quiet padding of someone approaching, and that served as an appropriate distraction from his introspection. Sesshomaru did not bother to look in the direction of the sound.

She had a distinct step that he had memorized long ago. She had a smell that had ingrained itself in his brain and threatened to never leave him. She had an aura that... was indescribable. But it meant something to him. It meant perhaps more to him than anything else.

"Sesshomaru-sama?" she said quietly, her soft, familiar voice sounding with a warm smile that molded itself into the hole where fear should have been.

He had heard her voice, that single title thousands of times. Why did this one sting so? Sesshomaru chose not to reply.

"I'm leaving soon," she said, sitting down next to him on the veranda, not needed an invitation to know that the gapping void at her lord's side was always open to her.

"Perhaps you could tell me," Rin began cautiously. She felt her lord turn his head to look at her. He had not made her feel so self-conscious in years. "Perhaps you could explain it to me, Sesshomaru-sama, what is on he tip of my tongue. I can feel the weight of it, but I don't know what it is." She toyed with a crease in her less formal kimono. "It's heavy, but I can't seem to discern what..." She faded off.

_Who was this girl? Who was this little, fragile human for whom Sesshomaru had stopped his carriage? She had been watching him from her seat beside the road for some time with her knees pulled to her chest. She did not need to speak for him to hear her. She was lonely. She was hungry. She had no home to which she could return. But she did not expect him to care. _

_Sesshomaru had picked her up and placed her amongst blankets in his carriage, made sure she was warm, fed her from his rations. _

_She took up so little space and rarely required tending. She was an easy travel mate. _

_After a time, Sesshomaru began to notice a strange change in his carriage. Every morning when he awoke, he found the dimensions of the bed decreasing. It was gradual at first, a slow sort of nudging inward that was unobtrusive and almost unrecognizable. _

_Then, one morning, he opened his eyes to find the girl next to him, pressing close because of the shrinking transport. But she was no longer a girl. How had he not noted the increasing of the human when he had noted the decreasing of the carriage? How had he allowed himself to be pressed flush with this female, this woman? How had he grown so contented to be in such proximity, to share breath, to share a carriage? This was his carriage! Who did she think she was?_

"If you wish to say something, be out with it. You will not make Haiguusha-san wait."

"Of course not," Rin agreed. "He was still preparing when I left." She lifted her gaze to the garden before her. Across the distance was the large, outlying hall where she had been married earlier that day. "I know not what to say."

Sesshomaru looked at her out of the side of his eye. Even in the dark, she was beautiful. "Then why did you seek me out?"

He watched her sigh painfully before bringing her eyes to his. "Because I _must_ say something."

_Sesshomaru sat, his feet hanging closer to the ground than they had the last time he paid them any mind, with the woman at his right. The jostling of the carriage tossed them gently against one another. Their shoulders and thighs touched, and both seemed uncomfortable with the contact but reluctant to withdraw. _

_The woman's hands, once neatly folded in her lap, parted. In the slowest, most subtle of motions, she dipped her fingers into the narrow valley that separated their hips, where Sesshomaru's hand hid, ashamed to be without its partner. _

_Her fingertips searched out the back of his hand, brushing lightly over his knuckles as though to ask permission. Then, in the boldest and yet simplest of motions, she slide her hand under his, their palms meeting like embracing friends and their fingers intertwining like lovers. _

"I should thank you," Rin said, tracing the grain in the wood by her folded leg.

"You need not," replied Sesshomaru.

"Then I will thank you for my sake, not yours. I would never sleep soundly again if I did not express my gratitude."

In Sesshomaru's mind, the image of Rin's new sleeping arrangement was conjured.

"I am very appreciative of everything you've given me, my lord," Rin continued.

Sesshomaru would have said she was welcome, but that would have been a lie. She was not welcome. She was _not_.

"You've provided me succor when no one else would. You... you overcame your own biases for me."

_She was not welcome in his carriage anymore. She never was. And yet, here she was, holding his hand, leaning her head on his shoulder, rocking against him in time with the wheels bumping in and out of furrows._

"I feel there is more for me to do... instead of just leaving."

"You have no responsibilities here, Rin. You may leave."

The woman hesitated. "Are you... dismissing me, my lord?"

He had not meant his comment to be a dismissal, but the notion suddenly seemed rather appealing. "You have no responsibilities here," he repeated. "Your obligations are elsewhere. I suggest you go to them."

"Yes, my lord," Rin said, bowing her head slightly. Pressing her palms to the wood, she rocked back onto her heels and stood.

Sesshomaru noticed that she was wearing tabi. She was not barefoot.

He listened to her padding away with a deliberate lack of speed to her gait. Was she expecting him to say something? He certainly hoped not. He had nothing left to tell her.

The footsteps stopped abruptly, and there was quiet swishing of silk. Sesshomaru looked toward the woman where she had stopped a few paces away. The white starlight caught in her eyes and hair, illuminating her through the shadows.

"Wish me luck," Rin said quietly.

From anyone else, Sesshomaru would have considered this a request. Rin was demanding it. From anyone else, he would have ignored a demand.

"Good luck, Rin," Sesshomaru replied.

"Tell me good bye."

"Good bye, Rin."

"Promise me that you will live well."

"I will live well."

"Tell me this is the right thing to do."

Sesshomaru watched her, knowing he could not in good conscience do as she requested. He was not certain what was right, but the few parts of him that were sure of anything could agree on one belief: what was right for her was not right for him.

The light trapped in her eyes leaked down her face in a single, fast flowing stream that lingered on the ridge above her upper lip before slipping into the crease of her sealed mouth. Another line from her other eye ran down her cheek and took a dive from the pearlescent skin of her gently trembling chin.

_Tell me you love me._

"You will live well, Rin. I have made certain of that," said Sesshomaru, turning to watch the garden, awashed in the eerie light of night.

"Thank you," Rin replied, beginning to turn away. She paused though and looked back at him, drinking in one last, precious vision. "Good bye, Sesshomaru."

She would be going far away and the question of their continued relationship was unanswered; Rin had the feeling that it would remain unanswered. Perhaps he would write to her. Perhaps he would arrive at her new home in the far south unexpectedly. It sounded like something he might do while caught in the embrace of a lonely caprice. He did strange things on a whim, Rin had discovered. She was evidence of that.

Perhaps he would forget her entirely. That was a viable possibility.

Rin could have stood, watching him for a blissful, contented eternity. But he was not looking back at her as she had wished he would. Reluctantly, she admitted that it was best that he did not return her gaze. She would never leave if he did.

_The woman, gently pulling away, still held his hand tightly. She brought their hands up to rest on his thigh, making sure that he saw their digits joined. Sesshomaru looked down at where the back of her hand rested against his leg. He then turned to look at her._

_Her face, smooth and open and honest, remained turned toward him. Her large, black eyes watched him, unfaltering and feasting, and her soft, pink mouth quirked in a sad smile that would be buried in him until the wheels of his carriage cracked and the axles split. _

_She gave his hand one last squeeze before silently slipping off the back of his carriage. He heard her small feet hit the dirt road. She took two steps before turning around to watch him. She was still smiling._

_Sesshomaru felt, for the second time, the urge to command his driver to stop, but he did not. He knew better than to try and cease this passage because time was an unending spiral and did not bode well with those who attempted to stop it. He did not need to stop; he would forever be overlapping with her in his memory. It would be painful to recall her; he knew that, but it would be far safer to enjoy her specter than her presence. He looked to his side to see the space that she had molded around herself. He felt his flank beginning to shift back its original shape from the dent she had put in him, pressed so closely in their tiny carriage._

_It had been _their_ carriage. It would feel like their carriage for a time to follow. For many days, the sun would pass in its round path over the road, the horses, the driver, the lonely Demon Lord, and every time, the sun would leave with the promise that, in the morning, it would return once more. _

_And their carriage - his carriage would trundle on._

_Sesshomaru watched the woman growing smaller and smaller in the distance. She remained in the middle of the road, observing him motionlessly. Her hair caught in the wind of time, and slowly she turned to dust and was carried off by the breeze until there was nothing left of her but her sweet, sad smile engraved in the stone of Sesshomaru's memory. _

_He expected his carriage to shrink once more, to close him into a long solitude, but it did not. He remained captured in a space just large enough for two if they did not mind breathing the same air and sleeping under the same blanket. He had not minded the breath or the blanket. Not so much. It was the girl... the woman who pushed out the breath. It was the body under the blanket that had come so close. He craved it. He feared it. _

He loved it.

He loathed it.

_In his prized collection of poorly made decisions, Sesshomaru thought as he looked down at his hand still resting against his thigh where she had left it, she was his favorite. _

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"You're already in there,  
I'll be wearing your tattoo.  
You're already in there,  
Thought I was over the bridge now.  
I'm already in,  
Circles and circles and circles again."  
-Tori Amos "Cloud on My Tongue"  
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Thanks for reading. Reviews are delightful, and criticism is savored. Flames are used to burn the bodies.

For those of you who are awaiting chapter five of _Ever Unforgiven_, I thank you for your patience. Have you ever had weeks when real life actually makes you pay attention to it and the blissful fantasy of fanfiction must be put aside in wake of the voracious, gnashing jaws of life away from your computer? In the words of Sasha Sycamore, "Sometimes life falls apart. Now is one of those times." Take heart! Chapter Five will be completed and posted soon.


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